Being a fresher is always hard and pressured and tricky to navigate. This year it sounds appalling. For what it is worth, here is my advice to those starting their architectural adventures this year.

There will be a temptation while locked in your room and socially distanced from all your classmates to believe there is something in that idea of the tortured artist whose credibility is linked to their suffering and loneliness. Reject this: it’s bullshit. Despite the myths that swirl around architectural studio units, architecture is collaborative and great architecture cannot be designed in a vacuum. Your work will not be better if you cut yourself off from everyone around you, hoard all your ideas like pirates’ treasure and make a point of never finishing work before 3am. These are the years when you lay your groundwork so don’t build your career on foundations this illogical.

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